If You Were Here
by idreamofdraco
Summary: Ginny takes a job offer that will land her in France, but she can't stop thinking about the man who left her. DM/GW. One shot.


_Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all related characters, settings, and terminology belong to J.K. Rowling. I am using them all temporarily, and for no profit, to entertain myself and others.  
A/N: Thanks SO much to Lyndsie Fenele for beta-ing!_

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**If You Were Here**

Dear Draco,

You wouldn't believe the day I'm having. Mum has decided to be a complete Nazi (That's like a dictator, I think. It's something to do with Muggles, Hermione says, so I'm sure you won't know what it is). I'm twenty-five years old and she insists on treating me like I'm still underage. The Department of International Magical Cooperation has offered me a job that would transfer me to France, and Mum insists that while I live in her house, I can't go. I told her there would be no problem, because once I go, I won't be living in her house anymore. Later, Harry tried to talk me out of taking the job, but he's part of the reason I'm leaving. He continues to act like he has any say in what I do, but he gave me up years ago.

I know if you were here, you would support me in my decision, wouldn't you? Isn't your family originally from France? I know you speak French. You could have come with me. You could have taught me some French words as we strolled down Paris streets and drank coffee at cafes while eating crepes and snails.

Maybe not the snails.

But I would dare you to eat them, and you would do it just to show me, an insufferable Weasley, up. You would eat your crepes with cheese because you can't stand the richness of chocolate. And then when I have chocolate on the corner of my lips, you would point it out and then kiss it off.

Doesn't it sound like fun? Do you want to go to France with me? If you were here, you could help me pack. Paris deserves an all-new wardrobe.

I suppose you are part of the reason I am leaving, as well. Do you mind if I leave? I want to stay here, for you, but I can't let opportunities pass me by just to wait for the man I love. Especially since he left without a single warning to the woman he said he loved.

I miss you. When will I see you again?

All my love,

Ginny

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Dear Draco,

Paris is too lovely to be real. I've been set up in a flat near the visitor's entrance to the French Ministry of Magic. It's called something else here, but it sounds like a sneeze to me when someone says it, so there's no way I could possibly spell it. I'm sure you're sneering at my inability to speak several different languages as you read this. If you were here, you'd tell me that I should be more cultured like you. Well, excuse me for not growing up with tutors to teach me how to be a nice little businesswoman! I was cooking the Muggle way by the time I was seven. Can you say that for yourself?

The man who met me at the ferry is called René. Don't snort, your name is bloody i_Drac/io_. He was very kind to show me to my new flat and then the easiest way for me to get to work. He introduced me to some of my coworkers and then we went out for dinner with his friends. They all speak very good English, with only a hint of a French accent. I was impressed. I'm sure you are not. You have nothing to fear though; I can't give up on you yet. There is no way I could date anyone when you are still very much in my thoughts.

My room is cold. This flat doesn't have a fireplace. If you were here, I know you would keep me warm.

I miss you. You haven't forgotten me, have you?

Yours,

Ginny

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Dear Draco,

I learned a new word today! This girl I work with was speaking in rapid French to someone else and then she suddenly turned to me and asked to see my _bras._ She said it in mixed English too, so I had no idea what she wanted. I thought she wanted to see my undergarments, but then someone translated for me, and my _bras_ was my arm! Apparently, the two women were ogling my freckles and they wanted a closer look.

If you were here, you'd never let me live that down, would you? No, I was not about to strip down in the middle of my new office because I thought some woman wanted a peek at my brassiere. I'm sure you would have enjoyed such a scene, but you are not here to appreciate it.

I received three letters today, one each from Dad, Harry, and Luna. Dad was just checking in on me to see how my first day of work went. He was upset that I was leaving, but he had no intention of stopping me. I'm guessing Mum refuses to write so he wrote to me so that he can reassure her that I am fine. And I am. I miss the Burrow and my family like mad but what I'm doing is worth it. Sometimes you just need to get away, you know? To forget things, or to put them in the past.

I told Harry and Luna the same. Harry was still trying to talk me into going back to England. I don't understand him at all. I've told him several times that I don't want to date him again. He was persistent when you and I were together, and when you left, his determination only grew. I wish he would stop bothering me.

If you were here, you'd beat him up for me, wouldn't you? Forget the wands; just give him a good punch. What do you say? Would you come back for that, if you could?

I love you. I miss you more with every passing day. France hasn't helped me forget you, it has only taunted me with a future you and I can't share, and places you and I will never see together.

I wish you had never left. I wish you would answer my owls.

Still yours,

Ginny

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Dear Draco,

I was prepared for a long weekend of boredom and depression. The time I spend not working is the hardest for me, because I am all alone in my little flat. At least, back in England, when I got off work I was surrounded by family and I could go out with friends. Here I have no one, so the nights are cold and lonely, and all I can think about is you. I've dreaded Friday afternoon, six o'clock, all week, because I knew that there would be nothing to distract me from thoughts of you.

Does it make you sad that I can't move on? Do you wish I would?

But then René showed up at my door and insisted that I go out with him and some of his friends. We went to a club. A club! I haven't been to a club since the night you—well, you remember, of course. And I actually had a good time. The music was so loud, it wasn't possible for me to think, and René made me laugh. I even made a friend: the girlfriend of one of his mates. Her name is Victoire, actually. She made me miss home a lot, and not just because she and one of my nieces share a name, but because she reminds me of Fleur without the Veela charm to give her all of her confidence. In other ways she reminds me of you. She's a bit snobby and proud like you are.

Don't preen. It wasn't a compliment.

If you were here, I would take you to this club, and I'd dance with you instead of René. If you had been here, you would have paid the wizard controlling the music to put on a slow song, and then you would have been the one to kiss me under the flashing multi-colored lights.

But you had to leave me. I don't know what I did wrong. I would give anything to have you back, but I know it's impossible. I hope you are having fun wherever you are, but at the same time, I hope you are as miserable as I am.

But I can't stop loving you or missing you.

Forever yours,

Ginny

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Dear Draco,

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while. It's been nearly a month, hasn't it? So much has happened that I want to tell you about.

My French is getting much better. I can speak it, sort of, but for the life of me, I can't write a thing. René apologized to me about that kiss in the club all those weeks ago. He said he shouldn't have drunk so much. I told him it was fine. And then we went out for dinner.

I have to let you go sometime. I can't hold on to you forever when you are never coming back. You left me. Whether it was by choice or force doesn't matter. The fact is that you are gone.

Do you remember our first kiss? It was after the war. You worked in the Department of International Magical Cooperation with me. Your office was next to mine, so I always heard you speaking French to different ambassadors and to the French minister. I had no idea what you were saying, but I fancied you immensely. I tried to hide it under the long-bred animosity between our families.

We were arguing about something, weren't we? I can never remember what it was. Maybe it doesn't matter; you probably started the fight on purpose. You always did like to rile me up. So one minute, we were arguing in my office, and the next, you had cleared my desk and sat me on it, our lips firmly locked together. The first of many kisses in that office and in yours.

You see why I had to leave, right? I had to get out of that office that held the memories of your kisses. I had to leave the Burrow, where everyone still celebrated your absence. I had to get out of England, because there is nothing there that doesn't remind me of you. I came to France partly as an escape, but partly to become closer to you. I wanted to walk the streets that you must have walked on your several business trips here. I wanted to talk to the people you must have talked to, when you dealt with the French Ministry. For all I know, I am sitting in the very office that you might have used, when you had the job that I took over from you after you left.

I've finally decided to do what everyone has told me to do since you left. I'm moving on. René is teaching me French. I'm drinking coffee with him at cafes while we eat crepes and (he eats) snails. He is my distraction from this place, this paradise, this hell that I exiled myself to. He is no Draco Malfoy, and because of that, I am grateful to him.

If you were here, would you fight for me? Would you tell René to stay away from me? Would you storm into my office and sweep me into a deep and passionate kiss, so that no one could ever mistake whom I belong to?

Well, I will always belong to you. My heart, my soul, and my body are yours, though I don't know what the dead could possibly do with them.

René? I feel nothing for him except gratitude, but in time, I could possibly grow to love him. My mum would adore him like she never adored you. Harry would respect him like he never respected you. But I will never love him like I have loved you.

You left me. What would you have me do?

Eternally and completely yours,

Ginny

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Dear Draco,

I'm back in England. After four months, they finally caught the man who killed you over a bag of gold, and I was a witness in his trial. You remember that night, of course. It is your very last memory.

His defense tried to get him less time in Azkaban by playing up that he was desperate and felt he had no other way. But of course the wizard trying to throw him in prison tore through that argument saying he should have just taken your gold and run, no need to kill you, too. He only targeted you because of who you were, and knowing you were powerful enough to demand retribution later, he had to get rid of you.

It was difficult for me to relive that night. It was a public trial—much, much too public. My entire family was there for me, and Harry. René wanted to come, but I could not introduce him to this world, the one that is all yours and mine. I can never let the two worlds touch. Your memory can never be tainted by memories of René. I couldn't explain that to him, so he did not understand why I didn't want him to come, but I made him promise that he wouldn't show up unexpectedly. And he didn't come.

When I was called in to witness, I had to recount how we were leaving the restaurant in Hogsmeade when the grungy man came out of nowhere and demanded you hand over your gold. I had to remember how you had sneered at him and pulled out your wand. How you shifted your body slightly so that you were between the man and me. How you pulled out a sack of gold and tossed it at his feet and told him to leave. How he had lunged at you and then snatched the sack up before running off. How you had died in my arms, blood pooling around our bodies and that wretched knife sticking out of your stomach. I had to tell the whole Wizengamot and every person who had showed up to the trial how you were dead before a single Hit Wizard arrived. I did not tell them how just before you left me all alone you whispered, "_Je t'aime_, _Ginevra_," in the French I used to love to hear you speak. I did not tell them how I responded through my sobs with the only French I knew, "_Je t'aime aussi, Draco_." Look, I can write that, can't I?

The man got five years in prison, though I wish he had gotten more. He took everything I had away from me. My whole life. The least the Wizengamot could have done was take his, make him suffer the same hell I've had to live through. Alive, but unable to live.

If you were here, you would have made sure he never saw the light of day again. But then again, if you were here, I never would have gone to France and the trial would have been for assault instead of murder.

I go back to Paris tomorrow. Neither Mum nor Harry has tried to talk me into staying here. I think after my testimony, they realized that there is no way that I can stay. René will pick me up at the ferry landing, and when he asks me to marry him, whenever that is, I will say yes, and I will marry him. The only man I ever wanted to be with left me. What would you have me do?

If you were here, I would have been married to you by now. But you are not here, and you are not coming back.

I miss you. _Je vous aime toujours._

Ginny

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_A/N: I don't speak French. I Googled these phrases. Haha. Review if you like it!_  
Je t'aime, Ginevra.= I love you, Ginevra.  
Je t'aime aussi, Draco. = I love you too, Draco.  
Je vous aime toujours. = I will always love you.

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